My name is The Blonde. And I am a retrosexual…

The nice thing about having ex-boyfriends is… Heck, answers on a postcard, people. Because I can’t find a reason.

Luckily, most of mine have handily disappeared (remember, ladies, for this option, aim for boys with No Mutual Friends). But others seem to loiter. On the corners of your life. At the parties you go to. Glowering from the corner when you talk to someone else mostly. Regardless of the fact that They Broke Your Heart.

I’m talking, in fact, specifically about The Ex. You know the one. You weren’t in love with him, but you thought you were. And the reason you thought it is because the sex was more mindblowing than skydiving after a double mochaccino (oh, and do remind me to tell you *that* story at some point). You cried for weeks after breaking up. Because The Ex is one of the only people who you’ve secretly imagined yourself ending up with. Not least because you might never have sex that good again. So you quietly imagine scenarios in which he might fall in love with you too one day. You do all this to justify the fact that, months after breaking up, you’re still shagging whenever you are drunk/tired/in the vicinity of one another’s house.

But I decided to stop all this. I went cold turkey. Well, not exactly cold turkey. I just decided to sample other… ahem… meat. And gradually we became friends. But ladies, ladies, ladies. If there’s one piece of advice I can give you. HE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. HE IS YOUR EX. Which was why, 2 years after my initial resolution, we ended up in bed together again. Drunk, naked, and still as mindblowing as ever. Just once more, I said to myself. But without feeling…

Weird logic then kicked in. I desperately didn’t want him to be the last person I slept with, lest the lust-driven part of my brain would start thinking it was in love with him once more. So the next day I arranged a drink with The Colleague. Who had also been a fling several months before. Ended up in bed with him too. Then later that week, got a call from The Agent, who’d also been a fling about a year before. And ended up in bed with him too. But had forgotten how hopeless the Agent was in bed. So two weeks later was back in bed with The Ex.

It was retrosexuality in the extreme. But my abiding memory from that week? Really? Truly? Was actually just that I was doing laundry. All the time…

There is nothing like a date...

Just like the fruit they're named after (n.b. Check fact), dates can be wonderful things. Sweet, sticky, moreish... a delicious morsel to savour for far longer than the initial experience. Or, you know, if the quality isn't there, just dry and slightly unappetising. And we won't go into the ones that give you food poisoning...

Oh no. Hang on. That's basically the point of this blog.

In short (and you may have noticed), it is the 21st century. An era that has brought us the iPhone, the Amazon Kindle, and Barack Obama. All fantastic US imports of recent invention (n.b. I accept that the sainted 44th wasn't 'invented', per se, but you know what I mean). However, way before they got their politics right, the Yanks had been doing something for years that we over here openly admired. No, not HBO dramas (though, obviously, those at well). But my point (I'm getting to it) they had a dating culture. People, usually of the opposite sex, met and went for coffee, for drinks, for walks in the park. This all before bumping uglies. We gazed on, perplexed, and wished we had it too.

Jealousy eventually got the better of us though. So FINALLY, right here in merry old England, it seems this dating malarky is really happening. Speed-dating. Internet dating. Double dating. Good old fashioned dinner-and-a-shag dating. It's all there. And everyone has a story. I think/suspect/fear I have more than many...

And there is no anecdote more amusing than an anecdate.

Enjoy, my strangers. And do add your own. I know I'm not alone...